


Dancing with Dugongs

by Heavenward (PreludeInZ)



Series: Thunderbirds Prompts [7]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, celebrity alligator wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4204053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/Heavenward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In response to <a href="http://tb5-heavenward.tumblr.com/post/120170973792/apologies-but-i-simply-must-ask-can-you-write-a">this post</a>. Featuring: brotherly banter</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing with Dugongs

Alan’s waiting at the end of the lane with folded arms and a sour expression, when Gordon breaks the surface. Before he can push off the wall and invert himself for another lap, he realizes Alan is glaring daggers at him and he treads water for a few moments, catching his breath. “Uh. You need something, little brother? You’re gonna mess up my lap times.”

“Forget your lap times. You already have a gold medal, you aren’t getting any better. You peaked already.”

“ _Hey_!” Gordon objects, offended. He swims to the edge of the pool and rests his forearms on the edge. “What’s gotten into you? What’d I do this time?”

Alan brandishes a piece of paper, crumpled in his hand.“You’re going to need to mail it again,” he announces. “Because it might fool Scott, and it’d definitely fool Virgil, but it didn’t fool  _me_ , and I’m the one who opened it. And I’m just  _so mad_  you didn’t let me in on this as soon as you thought of it. Dude,  _so not cool._ ”

“Check your helmet seal next time you’re in space, Al, some of your brains have leaked out. What’re you on about?”

Alan waves the piece of paper again as though that answers the question, and Gordon rolls his eyes, hauls himself out of the pool. “Gimme.”

He shakes his hands before he takes the page, flicking most of the water off, and then wipes his palms on the hem of Alan’s shorts as an extra precaution. Alan drops to sit on the ground next to his brother, still scowling as Gordon’s gaze wanders down the page. “I’m not saying it’s not  _brilliant_ , but you should’ve let me in on it. C'mon, Gordy.”

Gordon reads the letter in full, then reads it again. He pauses to press a hand to the side of his head, tilting it sideways and suctioning water out of his ear canal with a soft pop. “Wow. Oh man. I  _have_  peaked. I would never have thought of  _this_. This is  _genius_.”

“…what, you didn’t send it?” Alan’s eyes widen and he snatches it back. “You mean it’s  _real_? …are we celebrities? Really?”

“Guess so!” Gordon’s grin is irrepressible. “I mean, IR’s pretty famous, right? We have to do it. We  _have to_. Oh man. Okay. We’ve gotta call a meeting. This is  _important_.”

* * *

“ _No._  Unequivocably no. In fact,  _absolutely not_.”

There’s a twin chorus of protest from Alan and Gordon. Virgil hasn’t commented one way or the other, but Scott’s arms are folded across his chest and he’s holding the letter. John’s on the holocomm, but he’d been sleeping and when told what the subject of the meeting was, he’d groaned audibly and rolled back over in bed.

“But  _Celebrity Alligator Wrestling_ ,” Alan whines, but this is all he seems able to offer by way of argument. “They think we’re  _celebrities_.”

“Well, we’re  _not_. This shouldn’t even have come here, it should have gone through that PR firm Lady Penelope has representing us. And we don’t belong on TV, it sends the wrong message. It’s self-aggrandizing and the wrong kind of publicity.”

Alan slumps on the couch, pouting, and Gordon takes over. “C'mon, Scotty! You let Virgil do that naked calendar for Stanford–”

Virgil raises his hands defensively, “Whoa, that was for charity! I’m a Stanford grad, the Dean of Engineering called me personally–what was I supposed to say? And I wasn’t  _naked_ , Gordon, I was tastefully shirtless, and–”

“Well, close enough!”

“Oh, like  _you’ve_  got room to talk, you showed more skin in that Sports Illustrated spread.”

“Because I’m an  _Olympian_. You get interviewed by Sports Illustrated when you  _win the Olympics_.” Gordon scoffs, flexes. Virgil rolls his eyes.

Scott sighs and massages his temples. “Gordon, we really can’t–”

Gordon changes tactics, tries to swing Virgil back over to his side. “You just don’t want to because you’re  _scrawny_ , me and Virgil will make you and Alan look like wet noodles.”

Alan sits up straight at this, pouting. “ _Hey_! I’m not–”

John’s hologram grumbles, interrupting, “Guys, can I get off the line? Since this is clearly ludicrous and was not worth waking me for? Anyway, Scott’s right, the kind of reputation these shows have is–less than stellar.”

“You think everything on Earth is ‘less than stellar’, Johnny,” Gordon points out, not incorrectly. “Probably you shouldn’t be on TV anyway, you’ll  _blind_ people with your lack-of-a-tan. Fishbelly.”

John rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, I mean it this time. How would you feel getting hauled out of the house to be wrangled by vapid TV stars all day, when all you want to do is just be an alligator in peace? You do what you want, Gordon, but I want no part of it. I think it’s cruel and exploitative and inane programming for shock value.”

This puts a damper on the whole idea and firmly takes Alan out of Gordon’s corner. It takes Gordon most of the way out of his own corner. “…I didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah, I’m out,” Virgil agrees, folding his arms. “If we do anything, it should be the  _opposite_  of that. If someone wants to sign us up for…I don’t know, Dancing with the Dugongs, then  _maybe_  we could consider it. Some sort of worthy cause.”

John yawns widely and settles back down. “If common sense was all it took to talk you guys out of it, then I guess it was worth waking me after all. G'night.” He blinks away.

Scott uncrosses his arms and tosses the crumpled letter into the nearest trashcan, satisfied with himself the way he is whenever problems get resolved. “That settles that, then.”

Only, as he turns and leaves the room, Gordon and Alan share a look and then break into mirrored grins. It’s Alan who speaks up, though he and Gordon have clearly had the exact same idea. “So, Virge. Dancing with Dugongs, huh?” The youngest Tracy elbows his big brother in the ribs. “ _That_ sounds like good PR.”

Gordon’s on Virgil’s other side now, an arm around his brother’s broad shoulders. If they can rope Virgil in now, then it’s three on two, then the arguments as good as won. “Maybe even something we could call Lady Penelope about.”

Virgil’s always been the fulcrum of the family lever. He looks back and forth between Gordon and Alan and then he lights up with a grin of his own. “You two are nuts,” he declares. “Let’s call her.”

* * *

Not a week later they’re all off the coast of Indonesia, including John, who’s been convinced that this is a good cause, even if he’s now half sunburn, half freckles and grumbling about gravity. Lady Penelope’s come along, with a film crew in tow, and the boys are making a PSA about the declining Dugong population in the South Pacific.

Virgil’s tastefully shirtless once more, and Gordon’s trunks have the olympic rings emblazoned across the rear, just in case anyone (Lady Penelope in particular) might have forgotten about his gold medal. Alan’s still not quite over the “wet noodle” comment, and is wearing the t-shirt he hasn’t taken off, not even in the water, since their arrival. Scott joins him on the end of the pier where they’ve been diving.

“It was a good idea. Better than the alligator thing,” he comments. “And you’re not a wet noodle.”

Alan grins. “It was mostly Gordon’s idea. Virgil, too, he found the actual charity. Are we famous, Scott?”

Scott shrugs. “Sort of, I guess. I don’t know if I’d say we’re  _celebrities_ , Lady Penelope’s name on this thing is going to carry more weight than any of ours. But International Rescue has a reputation, and–well. Maybe it’s about time we started trying to save more than just people.”

Watching his brothers, frolicking in the water, Alan nods in agreement. Better than wrestling poor defenseless alligators any day.


End file.
